


Scales and Skin

by spitecentral



Series: Brothers and Bothersome Dragons [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragon!Al, Found Family, Gen, Minor Character: Winry, sometimes a family is you and a dragon living in a forest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 12:09:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14769329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spitecentral/pseuds/spitecentral
Summary: Ed had fully intended to beat up the dragon that had stolen his food. Instead, he found himself with a brother.





	Scales and Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Written on a whim because it's been waaaaay too long since I wrote a proper fantasy au for anything. I'd forgotten how much I love it.
> 
> Al's speech isn't human and should probably be in italics to avoid confusion, but honestly I'll be damned if I'm going to format that much. I hate HTML with a passion and I'm not doing it. 
> 
> Al is probably a bit OOC since, y'know, dragon, but I tried to keep him as in character as possible. This is my first time writing Paninya and I think I did decent, but I had to cut off Winry's section because she's impossible, so uhm, sorry in advance? And the editing was quick and minimal, so definitely point out any mistakes!
> 
> Lastly, I know the title sucks, blow me.

Edward Elric was six when his mother died, seven when Resembool burned down, and seven-and-a-half when he got separated from Winry and Pinako on the way to Rush Valley. Currently, he was eight years old and chasing a dragon. 

"Come back here, you thieving little lizard!" he yelled as he chased it. It had taken him days to catch that rabbit, and he was not giving it up just because some scaley rat decided to snag it from him. 

The dragon wasn't impressed. It seemed young, young enough that running was a more effective way of moving than flying, but even Ed had to admit that it could definitely run fast. It was a blur as it sprinted in front of him, and the only reason was was capable of keeping up at all was that the metallic glint of its scales was a dead giveaway in this green forest. 

Metal was an unusual colour for dragons. Supposedly, they were usually gold. Not that Ed would know; he'd never seen one before now. And quite frankly, he didn't card about the beast's colour, he just wanted his food back or so god help him, he would eat the dragon for dessert.

Then, of course, he tripped and landed with his face in a bush of nettles.

Of course he did. 

He cursed and absolutely did not cry. He hadn't cried when he'd gotten lost, he hadn't cried when he'd killed his first animal in order to eat, and he definitely didn't cry because a stupid dragon had just stolen his first real meal in days and he was now lying in a pile of nettles. He wasn't a kid anymore, he was capable of caring for himself, and he absolutely, definitely didn't cry.

He pushed himself up and heard his automail creak. It had needed oiling long ago, even Ed could see that, and he tried not to worry too much about what would happen when it inevitably broke. He didn't know how he would get around on only one leg and with one arm, but he'd manage. He always did.

A high-pitched, pitiful sound pierced his thoughts. It sounded like the crying of a wolf, only more... human. And smaller. And magical. It tingled through his body, even racing through his automail, and he turned around with a grin on his face. Slowly, as quietly as possible, he crept in the direction of the sound.

Finally, he had his target in sight, and for a moment, the grin turned into a smirk. 

Just as he'd thought, the sound had come from the dragon. It was sitting right in front of him, practically inviting him to catch it by being so exposed in the clearing. It was small, barely coming to Ed's knees, and so young that it couldn't possibly know any magic yet. Ed could take it. Mom had always told him that he was a natural at magic, and if necessary, he could pick its eyes out and run away with the rabbit while it was blinded. He could do this.

Then, he saw what the little dragon was actually doing with the rabbit, and his smirk vanished into a worried frown.

The small dragon was pushing the rabbit over to a much, much bigger dragon. This dragon had metallic scales, like the little one, but was so big that its back scales almost hit the top of the ancient forest. It was clear that this one had made the clearing by itself; the fallen trees and flattened grass were precisely the right size for a dragon's bed, and it was laying in it, still as a rock.

Still as a corpse.

The rabbit couldn't possibly be a large enough meal for such a gigantic beast, but the baby dragon was urging it to eat the prey anyway. Now Ed looked closer, he could see similar small corpses litter the clearing, from past meals uneaten, and the little dragon wasn't just little, it was also skinny. Its ribs were visible, and it trembled on its stick-like paws. But it was the wings that worried him the most; the skin on them were so fragile that they were almost translucent.

Maybe youth wasn't the only reason it couldn't fly.

Ed kept quiet as the dragon continued to whine, pushing the rabbit to what he presumed to be its parent. He tried to steel himself; the little dragon had absolutely nothing to do with him, and he couldn't afford to waste energy trying to keep something stupid enough to think that a corpse would eat alive. He was going to attack it and take his rabbit back and that would be that.

( _He'd slept with his mother's corpse for an entire night before Granny found him_ )

He'd already crossed the clearing by the time he realized what a stupid, stupid idea this was. 

"Hey, lizard," he greeted the dragon.

It hissed and backed away, closer to the corpse, with the rabbit clenched tightly in his jaw. Its feeble wings spread out as large as possible, like it was trying to protect the other dragon, but the shaking made it look pathetic more than anything.

"It's dead," Ed said bluntly.

The dragon continued to growl. It occurred to Ed that it might not understand him.

"Dead," he repeated, walking past the baby nipping at his legs and laying a hand on the nose of the corpse. Then, with immense strength, stretched scars, and creaking automail, he pulled up its (cold, blubbery, eerily dry) upper lip.

The baby went quiet, staring at him with big eyes. Ed stuck his hand inside, touched the dragon's teeth (cold, stone cold), and withdrew his hand again.

"If it was alive, it would have eaten me," he said.

The dragon stared at him, then at the corpse, and continued to offer the rabbit.

This wasn't working. He tried, and now he could just walk away. 

Walk away he did, dragging an unruly dragon behind him by its tail.

///

For the next week, they repeated this ceremony. Baby would slip off, try to offer food to the corpse, and Ed would drag it back to his home base by its tail. It growled and slapped and tried to bite, but it never seriously hurt him. Ed didn't know why he bothered to bring him back every morning.

( _He had yelled and hit and bit Granny and even Winry in the first few days after_ )

Finally, on the morning of the ninth day, he found the baby sitting in front of the corpse, but there was no prey nearby. It was simply lying there, pressing its snout to the corpse, trembling all over. 

Ed approached it slowly. Baby turned its head to him, and pressed its snout back to the corpse with a long whine. 

"I know," he murmured, patting its wings. "I know."

They slept there that night, not even bothering to make a fire, and when Ed woke up, the baby was lying on his belly, a warm spot on his cold body.

///

It followed him back to his base, and soon, they became inseparable.

Now that the baby had grieved, it ate like the monster it was. It was still too weak to hunt, so Ed had to be busy day and night, but he found that he barely minded. He watched the little one grow like a weed, its metallic scales shining more every day. Every night, the dragon cuddled up to him, and it was warmer than any fire had ever been. 

When its wings weren't so fragile and its paws not as thin, Ed came back to base to find it gone. His first thought was that it had gone back to the corpse, or worse, ran off entirely, but before he had time to panic, something knocked him to the ground.

The dragon had landed on top of him, holding the leg of a deer in its mouth. It shoved it into his face and sat back on Ed's legs, looking at him expectantly. 

"Uhm, buddy, I think I'm going to cook this first."

The dragon cocked its head. Ed pointed at his primitive pan.

"Cook," he repeated. 

The dragon looked in the direction Ed was pointing, got off his legs, and walked towards the pan. He continued to look at Ed, and his tail pointed towards the fireplace, then the pan, then the leg, and it growled.

Ed grinned. 

"Yes," he agreed, "I'll eat it."

///

Slowly, they established communication. It was complicated and it took practice, but once the dragon started helping Ed with finding food, they had loads of free time on their hands.

Ed learned that dragons talk with growls, body language, and, sometimes, magic. It was a strange language, nothing like anything Ed had seen before, but he found it fascinating and the more he learned, the more he liked it. It was simple, to the point, and yet so much more complex than his own, and he loved it.

When they were capable of speaking to each other, Ed learned that the dragon was a boy named something incredibly complicated. He shortened it to Al.

Al also thought his name was weird.

"Is not!" Ed protested.

"Is too," Al said, lounging in front of the fire with a satisfactory grin, "You humans just throw two random syllables together to form a name. It's weird."

"At least my name isn't a gazillion years long!"

"At least my name means something."

Ed sputtered at that, and Al laughed so hard he blew the fire out.

///

Al taught him magic.

He already knew the basics, of course, but Al taught him things beyond his wildest imagination. He taught him how to understand the trees and the plants, he taught him how to make vines grow out of nothing, he taught him feel the presence of living beings around him. 

Soon, Ed and Al had built a home for themselves, suitable for both human and dragon, made entirely out of living things. The vines that made up the walls were thick and sturdy enough to keep out even the strongest wind, and the little ornaments that Ed had insisted on were made out of leaves, and, in Al's humble opinion, really tasteless.

"What do you know, you're a dragon."

"According to the laws of magic, dragons are the epitome of perfect beings, so I think I'd know a thing or two about what does and doesn't look stupid."

"Oh, shut up."

///

Ed found a wolf puppy in the house on a winter's day, and promptly threw it out.

"She was abandoned by her mother!" Al protested, holding the whining pup in his mouth.

"That's nice, but nothing with rabies is getting in our house," Ed insisted stubbornly.

"She doesn't have rabies!"

Ed lost the fight, of course, and the puppy came and lived with them. Soon, a clan of bees ("They had nowhere else to go and they promised not to sting you!"), a family of field mice ("They were freezing to death!"), a wounded deer ("He would've died otherwise!"), and five more puppies followed. In that year alone.

Somehow, Al had turned their magical house into a rescue for animals, and Ed was forced to learn basic first aid, along with advanced healing magic.

He was rather good at it, actually. And although he would never admit it, it was rewarding to see the animals heal, to hear the happy buzz of bees around their house, to get little presents from birds in the form of feathers, to wake up to little mice nesting in his hear and wolfs, no longer puppies, nuzzling his cheek.

Al looked smug and Ed hated him.

///

Sometimes, at night, they talked in hushed voices about what they lost.

Al told him about the dragon whose corpse he'd seen. She was his mother, and she'd cared for him when their family-tribe had pushed them out for something or another (Ed didn't quite understand dragon law). She had a lovely laugh, Al told him, powerful magic, and a taste for rabbit.

Ed told Al about his mom. How she'd ruffled his hair whenever she was proud of him, how she'd smiled and reassured him when his father left, how she'd stayed optimistic and kind even when she grew sick. 

He also told him about Resembool. About their annual sheep shearing contest, about the way everything smelled of cows in the summer, about the little school he went to. But most of all, he told him about Pinako, who had taken him in after his mother died, who had made him drink milk even though it was disgusting, who had given him automail after he lost his arm and leg in an accident, and who had saved his life when the fire has started and wiped everything away. 

And about Winry, his best friend, who he'd once given a scar by throwing a rock at her, and who had given him the scar on his forehead with a wrench; who had slowly coached him to happiness after his mother died, who he in turn had helped when she became an orphan. Winry, who was an absolute genius.

"She had a distant aunt in Rush Valley. We were on our way there when a gang of bandits attacked us and I had to run," Ed pulled his legs to his chin. "I wonder if they made it."

"I'm sure they did, Brother."

Ed's automail hand fell to the ground with a clunk, and he stared at Al. He didn't seem to realize what he'd done, until his eyes grew wide and his wings flared. 

"Sorry!" he squeaked, "Sorry, was that too much?"

Ed didn't answer. He just threw his hands around Al's neck. 

"Just enough," he choked.

///

One day, Al brought back a wounded human. She had brown skin, black hair, and automail legs in perfect condition that Ed was absolutely not jealous of. 

Oh, and a giant, oozing gash in her stomach.

"Heal her, Brother!"

"Goddamnit Al, couldn't you have done it yourself?" he said, warming up a potion above the fire, hoping desperately the bandage would be enough to stem the bleeding for now. 

"I tried! Nothing happened!"

"Shut up and let me concentrate."

Distantly, he heard Al mutter "You asked", but he had a single-minded focus on grounding up the nettles and adding them to the potion, infusing as much magic as possible.

He snuck a quick glance at the girl. She was ashen, and even unconscious, her face was screwed up in pain.

He turned back to the potion. He couldn't afford to mess this up.

///

Three days later, the girl woke up, and Ed dearly wished that he'd let her die.

The first thing she did was try to sit up. You know, with a healing wound in her stomach. 

"Ah!" she gasped, but didn't take the hint and kept moving. 

"Lay the fuck down or you're going to open your stitches," Ed barked at her. 

She opened one eye, and even through what must have been excruciating pain, she grinned. "Your bedside manner sucks."

"It's been like ten years since I last talked to a human, lay off."

She looked him over, skeptical. "Ten years? How old are you?"

"I'll tell you if you stop killing yourself and lay down."

Obediently, she lay down, but that troublemaker grin was still perched on her face. "Well?"

Ed shrugged. "Dunno."

"Oh come on, you promised!"

"What, like keeping count of your age is the highest priority while trying to survive in the wilderness."

She raised an eyebrow and looked around his house. "You seem be doing pretty well," she remarked. 

"All thanks to Al. Now sit still, I'm going to check your wound."

This time, she didn't protest, and Ed carefully unwrapped the bandage. The wound didn't seem to be infected, so Ed just added some more potion and re-bandaged it.

The girl was staring at him.

"What?" he snapped.

"Just wondering who you are, mystery man," she answered. "And who this 'Al' is."

"Brother? Is she awake?"

As if on cue, Al appeared in the door frame, excitedly swiping his tail. 

"Yeah, and apparently she's an idiot too. Almost tore open her own stitches."

Al turned his stern gaze to the girl. "Please stay still, we don't want you hurt anymore than you already are."

She didn't answer, just stared at him with an open mouth. "Is - is it," she whispered, leaning to Ed. "Is it talking to me?"

Ed furrowed his brow and shot a glance at Al. After so long, he'd forgotten that understanding him wasn't normal. 

"Yes. He told you to stay still so that you don't hurt yourself." Ed threw her a sharp look. "And Al's a 'he', by the way."

She blinked, and stared at Al incredulously. "Huh," she finally said, and shifted her gaze so she was staring upwards. "I guess that explains the high ceiling."

Ed was confused for a second, until he looked up himself. It's true that he and Al had to make the house a little bigger every once in a while, but somehow, he hadn't really payed attention to it before. But now that he did, he could see what she was talking about; the room was massive. 

And when he turned to look at Al, he realized why.

For some reason, he'd always kept seeing Al as that little knee-high rabbit thief he had been the first day they met. However, over the years, Al had grown into a gigantic dragon, towering over Ed, with his teeth alone easily being as large as half Ed's body. His metallic scales had gotten a golden glitter to them, and they made him look majestic and almost terrifying. His eyes, however, were still as gentle as ever.

His little brother had grown so much, and for the first time in years, Ed began to wonder how old he himself was, actually.

///

The girl was called Paninya, and she had gotten the wound when she had tried to rob a rich man. Then his guards had dumped her in the forest and left her for dead.

"You shouldn't have tried stealing," Ed said, mercilessly pouring cold water over her wound to wash it.

"He was an - ah! - asshole. Had been hitting on my friend and threatening to ruin her business when she didn't cooperate."

Ed sat back and picked up the bandages that Al was holding out. "Alright, yeah, he deserved it. What's your friend's business?"

"Automail, of course."

Ed paused. "Automail?"

"Brother!" Al said, excitedly nuzzling his arm. "She might be able to fix your limbs!"

By some miracle, his automail hadn't fallen apart yet, but it might as well have. Ed was holding it together by a mixture of strings, vine, and magic, and it creaked more and more every day. He'd lost his middle finger and all his toes already. He badly needed an upgrade.

Paninya turned her head to Al. "What'd he say?"

"That your friend might be able to fix my automail."

She turned to look at Ed and grimaced. "Ouch, yeah, that definitely needs a patch job. Tell you what, if you let me ride your dragon home, I'll convince her to do it for free."

"Not my dragon," Ed said at the same time Al exclaimed "Of course!"

Paninya grinned. "I'm guessing that was a yes."

///

Paninya healed quickly, and soon enough, they were good to go. 

"This is amazing!" she yelled, throwing her arms in the air as they soared through the sky. 

"Fuck yeah!" Ed yelled back, trying to keep his hair from blowing into his face. Al never let him ride him, and it was exactly as amazing as he'd expected it to be, the clouds blowing past them, the rush of adrenaline through his veins, the miniature forest below him soaring by.

"Miss Paninya, please hold on tighter," Al said, casting a worried glance back at her. 

"Can't understand you!" she yelled back, excitedly waving at the ground. They had left the forest behind already, and now baffled people were staring up at them.

Ed stood up on Al's back, yelling as loud as he could, spreading his arms wide, and Paninya joined him in his triumphant screams.

"You're both going to die!" Al yelled.

///

Way too soon, they landed in the middle of a street, people screaming and fleeing from Al's huge body.

"That's hers," Paninya said cheerfully, pointing at a little shop across the street. Curiously, Al leaned to look through the window.

"It's too small," he muttered, disappointed. "I can't see anything."

Ed hopped off Al's back, and promptly fell through his knees. Suddenly, he couldn't feel his left leg.

"Brother?" Al squeaked, hurriedly shielding him with a wing.

"Automail finally broke," Ed gritted out as he sat up.

Al hummed, his tense muscles relaxing. "At least we're at the automail doctor."

"Mechanic," Ed corrected.

Meanwhile, Paninya was thumping on the shop's door. 

"Yo, Winry, come out! You won't believe what I have with me!"

Ed blinked. Al threw him a look and shifted his tail, surprised. "Winry?"

At that moment, the shop's door flew open and a young woman with long, blonde hair stormed out, wrench in the hand and a furious look on her face. She stopped dead when she saw Paninya, staring at her like she'd seen a ghost.

Then, she hit her over the head with the wrench. 

"You idiot!" she screeched as Paninya rubbed her head. "I thought you were dead! Where on Earth have you bee-"

Finally, she seemed to notice the gigantic dragon at her door.

"Paninya," she demanded, clutching the wrench tightly. "What is that?"

"That's Al," Paninya answered cheerfully.

The woman turned to look at Ed. Al nervously shuffled closer to him. 

"And who," she said, pointing the wrench at him. "Is that?"

"Your new client!"

Ed pushed himself up, and Al hurriedly shuffled over to help him. Leaning heavily on Al, he managed to hobble over until he was right in the woman's face. Her eyes were a bright blue, and she had the tiniest, little scar above her eyebrow.

Ed remembered that scar. He'd made it himself when he'd thrown a rock at her.

"Winry?" he said softly.


End file.
